Customers of a financial institution rely on many different services provided by the financial institution to help manage various aspects of their personal and/or commercial finances. For example, customers who are required to make regular credit card payments, mortgage payments, home loan payments, and the like, often set up their bank accounts so that such payments may be automatically made on or before the date they become due. Many customers also utilize various financial services for investment and savings purposes, such as Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), college savings plans, or standard brokerage accounts.
With the tremendous rise in the number of customers who regularly engage in online banking has come an increased demand from customers for simple and efficient ways to stay informed about various financial activities and changes associated with their customer accounts. As a result, many financial institutions now provide some variation of an alert notification system, in which a customer of a financial institution is alerted when a particular event or activity occurs with respect to the customer's account, credit card or other related financial matters.
Despite the advent of known alert notification systems deployed by many financial institutions, many customers find such alerts to be irritating and time-consuming, especially if the customer has little or no interest in the subject matter or issue that spurred the generating of the alert in the first place. Instead, customers prefer to receive alert messages from their associated financial institutions when it is most convenient for the customers. Furthermore, customers often prefer to receive only those alert messages that they find to be valuable, and not be required to sort through additional alert messages they deem unimportant or irrelevant.